ABSTRACT
Many philosophers have written about beauty. For example, in the Republic Plato asks “for what should be the end of music if not the love of beauty?”1 The purpose of this brief chapter is not to survey philosophical thinking on beauty through the ages, nor is there any intent to define beauty or to provide answers to pertinent questions. Rather, the purpose here is twofold: (1) to identify some of the important questions philosophers have raised about beauty over the centuries, particularly in reference to music, and (2) to stimulate your thinking so that as you read the various philosophical viewpoints presented in subsequent chapters and begin to develop your own philosophy, the topic of beauty will be uppermost in your mind. It is certainly possible to develop a philosophy of music that does not explicitly concern itself with beauty, as a number of philosophers have not made this a central focus of their thinking. However, an intentional, carefully considered omission is different from failure to take up the issue at all.
